(clearwisdom.net) I was detained twice and have been sent to a labor camp for one year because I practice Falun Gong. I'd like to briefly talk about what I have experienced and seen inside the tall walls.

I was arrested along with a number of practitioners by the public security bureau in the name of "illegal gathering" when we were doing exercises together at a practitioner's home and studying Teacher's books. We were detained for inspection to determine "the organizer". They would force us to stand with legs apart and knees bent for a long time. We were made to press our heads against the wall, and they beat us up. In the cold winter weather, they would not allow us to wear thick clothes and would cuff our hands to electric poles, iron poles or trees. They forced us to squat on our heels or they would hang us up high, with our feet dangling. They wouldn't allow us to sleep for consecutive days and nights and wouldn't unlock the handcuffs until they were satisfied. In short, they would use all means to extort a confession by torturing us. In the end, they would force you to sign a "promise statement" and pay a fine before they would release you.

In the detention center, we were not allowed to have our families send us items for personal use. Instead, they would sell us the items at a price several times higher than the market price. We were detained for more than two months before being sent to labor camps. During this period, they would not only collect the living expenses in the detention center, but would also force us to pay for the trips to the labor camp. They would force some practitioners to buy cotton-padded jackets, trousers and other articles of poor quality for high prices. They intended to use up all of our money. Some practitioners' properties were confiscated. Some practitioners didn't have money to buy sanitary napkins during their menstrual period. Their blood would drip into their pants. Some prisons wouldn't give practitioners drinking water. Instead, they would force them to drink the water in the urinal. For some practitioners, the police wouldn't inform their families of their whereabouts. Their families didn't know where to send clothing and toiletry items to them. Some practitioners were beaten up, lashed by a leather belt, wore handcuffs and fetters, and were tortured between life and death on a bed of torture.

During the early days in the labor camp, they would force us to do hard labor. They would force us to get up at 6 a.m. in the morning to eat. Then they would force us to work in the workroom until after 12 midnight before they would allow us to go back to our cells to sleep. Cellmates who were detained due to drug addiction, prostitution, stealing and defrauding would foul our cells. They would drink alcohol, smoke (they burned headache powder as a drug), fight, and burn cotton and plastic buckets to cook snacks. The fumes made it hard to breathe because the doors and windows were tightly closed. At night, the mice would run around in groups and turn everything inside out, and would even climb up on the bed. It was hard to sleep in such a room with more than 20 people and the constant noise of defecation and urination, and sometimes the sound of weeping.

To validate Dafa, we wanted to do the exercises. The police in the labor camp would attack us without restraint. My back was kicked and injured, and I had hematuria for more than two weeks. They would also viciously kick us in the pit of the stomach, hit our heads against the wall, trample our legs, grab our hair and drag us for dozens of meters. They would heavily strike our backs or heads against the edge of the cement, making the scalp break and bleed. Later, they would say that we carelessly stumbled and did it to ourselves. Some practitioners were dragged into the excrement tank. Others were dragged into a stinking ditch, and they poured filthy water on them. Some were tied to trees, and a few were even tied up and dragged hundreds of meters before being thrown into the workroom. Women were forced to stand against the wall from morning to night with their heads pressing against the wall. In one of the squads, several practitioners were forced into water prisons. In addition, they were not allowed to go to the bathroom for over ten hours every day. Some practitioners were detained in "small cells" long-term, with no food and no shower. [For a description of these "small cells" and the water dungeon, please visit: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/11/24/16156.html]

During brainwashing, the police would force us to watch false news, read newspapers, listen to radios and watch videos that defame Dafa, and study a number of "transforming materials for internal use" every day. After a few short days they would force us to wear signs that said "(slanderous term omitted) crime." We refused to wear it, because we didn't commit any crime. The police would then torture us by using all means including beating us with an electric baton, wooden club, spiked baton, leather belt, bamboo sticks, thin ropes, and stab our acupuncture points with a fountain pen. Some Falun Gong practitioners destroyed the signs. The police would not only fine them, but also beat them into a mass of bruises. Their whole bottoms were beaten to a purple-black color with blood penetrating to the skin. Their arms and legs were covered with bruises as well. Even the doctors in the labor camp would shake their heads and sigh when they saw the bruises on practitioners. The police would even press the electric baton against our bodies without removing it for a long time, the batons would generate a "pa-pa" sound and the sparks would leap out. Two elderly practitioners in their 50's were sent to a mental hospital. A conscionable doctor wept after examining them, and later he told the police, "they're perfectly normal, we don't accept those who don't have mental disorders." So they were taken back to the labor camp.

In order to force us to give up our faith in "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance", the police would force us to stand or sit in an army posture under the burning sun for several hours and not allow us to go to the bathroom. Some Falun Gong practitioners had diarrhea and were also not allowed to go to the bathrooms, so they sweated profusely. They couldn't stand upright while suffering the pain, but the police would yell at them not to move. Some couldn't stand it and had to relieve themselves in their pants. Some just fainted. After a few hours of sitting in army posture, one would slouch a little. They would suddenly hit you or kick you heavily from the back, making one extremely nervous. They would also force us to squat on one leg barefoot on the ground covered with stones and not allow us to switch legs. They would force us to squat for a long time without moving. They might also force us to run on the stone-covered ground barefoot. When we couldn't move any further, they would demand the drug abusers in the "Civil Management Association" to drag us to run. Many Falun Gong practitioners were forced to do three hundred, five hundred or even over a thousand squatting movements. We had to do it with both hands holding the head. Our clothes and pants were wet with sweat, our legs would be too shaky to walk or climb stairs, and we couldn't squat anymore. Even after being tortured to exhaustion and having no uninjured spots on our bodies, our hearts were not moved. We didn't fight back when we were beaten up or sworn at, we had no complaints or resentment, no matter how bad they treated us, we were not bothered, instead we would always encourage them to do good deeds. We would treat everything in our surroundings with compassion.

The police knew that the more they beat us, the firmer we became, so they would have closed-door meetings every day to talk over how to deal with us. The police ganged up with the drug abusers and changed their ways of persecuting us. They knew that we were not afraid of being beaten up or sworn at, but we couldn't stand it if they swore at Dafa or Teacher. So they would insult and swear at our Teacher to sting our hearts as soon as we did not obey. They would force every one of the Falun Gong practitioners to drink the so-called "heat reliever" made by them. We didn't know what they had put into it. They told us that it was for preventing "heat stroke" in the hot summer. Other detainees in the labor camp didn't have to drink it. An aged Dafa practitioner could hardly move after long-distance running and many squatting movements. She was still forced to move downstairs to the assembly room. Because her legs couldn't move, she fell down next to the staircase.

The labor camp would force us to listen to the reports by "Masanjia Helping and Teaching Group", fooling us by saying that they were practitioners from Masanjia. The "Helping and Teaching Group" would distort the contents of Teacher's teachings. Their goal was to mess up our minds. Some were deceived and started to talk nonsense like them. They not only were deceived themselves but also became accomplices. The labor camp fooled practitioners into thinking that as long as we wrote an "understanding," we would be released in a month. When some practitioners wrote such "understandings," they would say it wasn't clear, and that we needed to "understand again" and "expose and criticize." They would press forward steadily, to induce those practitioners who have strong attachments to "break with" Dafa.

In prisons and labor camps, the police would brutally persecute Falun Gong practitioners. They would utilize any torturing method. However, for those real criminals, they would indulge their evil habits from time to time. The criminals wouldn't correct their wrongdoings. They still committed bad deeds by gambling, lying, swearing at others, fighting, abusing drugs and stealing. The police wouldn't stop them. Instead they would induce them to beat up Falun Gong practitioners.

In order to be released early, these ignorant criminals would cooperate with police to devise means to brutally torture Dafa practitioners unscrupulously. They even requited kindness with enmity. Their families were expecting them to become new women in the labor camp. However, changing them was impossible from the start! A squad chief said, "as long as you finish the task I gave you, whether you become a good woman or not is not my business!" One who got here due to an incorrect verdict would learn a lot of methods to commit crimes even though she did not know how to before. One can only become worse and worse in there.

"Zhen-Shan-Ren is the Sole Criterion to Discern Good and Bad People." One who persecutes kind people is a truly bad person. Good or evil has its reward or tribulation in the end!
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/3/1/25840.html